In my last post about the Cradle Valley Trail run I mentioned the difficulty I had had with my recovery from breaking a rib or two on the Gone Nuts 50k run. Well, I did recover and I slowly began to get back closer to my best parkrun times. But then it was time to farewell Tassie's shores as Val and I headed off into the wilds of the Mainland for our extended tour as parkrun tourists; visiting our PIM padres; and meeting with the folk in little country churches.
I was getting some better times in the various parkruns we visited, the highlight of which must surely have been my first place at Yeldulknie Weir Trail parkrun. We also had enjoyable runs at Timboon and Mildura Weir in Victoria, Yeldulknie Weir Trail in SA and Kalgoorlie-Boulder, Moora (the last three also giving me the Age Grade first place finish), Claisebrook Cove and Shipwreck in WA before I endured a hamstring strain at Champion Lakes, just after the 3k mark, when I was heading for another sub 25:00 time. In retrospect I'm putting it down to running late in getting there and not having an adequate warm up on a cold morning, but I can't be sure. I saw a physio the following Monday who diagnosed a Grade 1 strain as I had been able to jog/walk/hobble to the finish. I was banned from running for the next three weeks; I had exercises to complete three times per day; and after three weeks I could begin to jog again. That meant the Collie River Trail parkrun was a "walk in the park" where Val beat me home by a good ten minutes, though the following Saturday at Albany's Mt Clarence with its hills was a much faster walk, which we did together. At Manjimup I volunteered as Tailwalker and the following Monday I was able to start jogging again so that the next week at Geographe Bay parkrun I ran in a time of just over 30 minutes, which was very pleasing. We had a week where there was no parkrun within cooee but the following week saw us in Geraldton for the launch of their Marina parkrun, where I surprised myself by running their flat course in 25:57 while trying to make sure that I didn't overstretch myself.
Before we left home, I went to see Ben Brockman and he gave me two training programmes - a general one and one that I could pick up if I was able to find any longer races to participate in while we are travelling. I've now gone back to the very beginning of the general programme to start all over again. Today I had a 60:00 run but what a day for it. I started on the Foreshore Track that is used by Marina parkrun after I had a drink at the water station, expecting to find more of them along the pathway. The hot and dry blustery wind buffeted me from the beginning as I started in 27o and expected to find a few water spots along the way, but there weren't any at all. I turned at 30:00, which was just over 5k, and made my way back - but the sun's intensity was stinging my arms even though I had used sunscreen before I stated. There was little shade along the pathway, and by now I was beginning to run fractionally slower in the shade and picking up pace in the sun. But by about the 8k mark I was beginning to feel the effects of a lack of fluids, and was yearning for the next water station. When I found it I drank, used my gel, drank some more and set off but I couldn't quite get my rhythm going and slowed down a bit and when I finished it was 31o. However, I did manage 9.93 k for the 60:00 and was very pleased with that time.
I'm hoping that when we get to our next parkrun in two weeks' time that I will have improved even more.
In the meantime, happy walking/jogging/running to all my friends far and wide who enjoy a bit of exercise.
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